Leadership Tips to Boost Your Team’s Performance
Looking for some practical leadership tips to improve your team’s results? Think back to a project when you felt eager for the day and ready to contribute to the work being done. What was the work environment like? Can you identify any traits that you, your boss, or team members had? Developing people, treating them with respect, encouraging their talents and input – these are sure fire ways to fuel your teams responsiveness and contribution! Seems pretty basic, but all too often leaders overlook simple ways to foster an environment of success. Here are some practical leadership tips suitable for just about any working environment:
Listen – as odd as it sounds, so many leaders don’t take the time to actually listen. In your next meeting or group discussion, pay attention to how you interact in face-to-face conversations. What’s your tone? Are you serious, empathetic, yelling, calm, patient, demanding, distant, overly-chatty … Jot down a few notes as reminders on how you communicate with your peers, vendors, customers, or team members. Do you understand what they need? Knowing what to act on and what to let go is another set of skills, but at a minimum a leader needs to be able to listen to understand the needs and feelings of another person.
Appreciate – Try to catch people doing something right. Every human being wants to be told they’re appreciated, that their work is noticed and valued. Sometimes a leader might not always have complete visibility to work being done – if that’s the case, create a mechanism for people to recognize each other and submit it to the leadership team for review. Solicit feedback. Find ways to find out! Then, most importantly, thank the person. It could be a simple e-mail, a chat in the hall, a discussion over lunch – get creative and show people they matter! What about an underperforming employee ? Does showing appreciation send mixed signals? My experience is that performance expectations can be clearly reviewed and discussed with the team member in private, and saying “thank you for…” or “I appreciate…” encourages the team member to rise to the expectations set.
Respect – I was taught a very simple lesson by a mentor as I started interviewing for summer work when I turned 15: Treat the assistant the same way you treat the executive. What a concept! People, regardless of their title, matter! Treat the waitress with the same level of respect as a banker. Treat the intern with the same level of respect as the CMO. The leader sets the level of respect within the organization.
Develop – Do you offer team members the tools to become the best they can be? What do you provide in terms of ongoing training and education? Don’t look to control how they improve, but rather coach that they do improve. In one organization, I was shocked to discover that very few of the team members even took me up on my offer for ongoing education support. I advertised, I reminded, I encouraged … out of 100, only a few approached me with their desires of ongoing development … at first, that is. Then, an attitude shift started to occur within the team as others reported on ways they were taking new classes, getting certifications, participating in a book club, etc. More and more people started to take me up on the offer, and the “snowball” of success grew as it rolled forward! Don’t feel you have to be the only coach – those first participants may be your biggest allies in fostering the environment of ongoing improvement.
Unleash – People already have power and energy. They come ready to contribute in a meaningful way! How can you help them unleash it? Focus on decentralizing as many decisions as possible so team members can use the power of their experience to help move the project forward. Start with the end result explained to the team, set the basic guardrails, describe what success looks like, provide ongoing encouragement and direction, and most importantly move out of the way to let the team move forward under their own power. All too often, leaders set the desired end result and the solution. Turns out, the team will most likely come up with a better solution to meet the needs of the end result if you let them.